Discurse, testimony, and suffering: narratives from people with depressive disorder in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper between 1990 and 1999

Abstract

This article focuses on the testimonies of people with depressive disorder published in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper between 1990 and 1999, seeking to reflect on the relationships established between the victim, the journalist, and the public, the roles played by each, and the performances presented in the newspaper. It is justified that testimony, in its rich material variation, constitutes an interesting problem for the field of Communication, especially when seeking to understand how certain experiences of suffering become narratively acceptable today. The method used was the archaeology and genealogy described by Foucault. The data obtained by the research indicate that, already in the 1990s, a certain regime of veridiction was formed based on emotions and performance, in which only the qualities of the subject allow them to tell the truth. In other words, there is a subordination of knowledge to the way of being. This allows us to infer that true discourse began to subordinate constative statements to performative statements.